Two Milwaukee County Residents Share Differing Viewpoints on Trump Arrest

Since former President Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury and subsequently arrested in New York last week, two local residents’ polar opposite views are indicative of the growing divisive views in the United States regarding the former president and the current political climate.

Media Milwaukee spoke to these two residents of Milwaukee County to hear how they felt about the indictment and arrest.

Anticlimactic

“How many times have we seen all this all play out? He gets away with everything,” said Milwaukee County resident Leanne Rutowski. “I don’t think he’s going to be convicted.”

Rutowski, 56, has lived in Wisconsin her whole life, currently in the village of Hales Corners, and works as a construction administration coordinator. She says her opinion of the former president is much older than most peoples, as it was formed long before he entered politics.

“I followed Donald Trump for many years because I was in property development 25 years ago and as a developer, I’ve heard about him before he was in politics and I knew that he was a dishonest, despicable person,” said Rutowksi

Trump was arrested on April 4 after an unsealed indictment revealed that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged the former president with 34 felony counts for falsifying business records in New York, according to USA Today. This includes the $130,000 in hush money that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen allegedly made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Appearing before a Manhattan District Court, Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Despite the 34 felony counts the president was charged with, Rutowski expressed dismay about what the charges were related to.

“I was disappointed that this was the thing that he was being indicted on, whatever it is I want it to be a really tight case,” Rutowski said. “I don’t think this Stormy Daniels stuff is tight enough to put him away.”

Despite this being news that Rutowski had been hoping for, she has not been paying that much attention to the news after the initial arrest as she described being addicted to the news cycle while Donald Trump was president.

“I try not to pay as much attention to news like that as I did during Trump’s presidency,” said Rutowski. “I’ve cut down on it for my mental health.”

Rutowski explained that outside of taking about the arrest with her husband, she hasn’t brought it up in conversation with other members of her family for several reasons.

“I don’t talk about it with my family because they’re all conservatives,” said Rutowski. “At least with the older members of my family like my siblings and the in-laws, I’m definitely in the minority politically speaking”

When asked to describe in one word her feelings about the news, Rutowski said, “Anti-Climactic.”

Not the Biggest Thing in the World

Seven miles away in the city of Milwaukee, 23-year-old auto service advisor Collin Bennett lived in Hales Corners for much of his life before moving to Milwaukee last year. A registered Republican, he had a much different take regarding Trump’s arrest.

“It’s one of those things that just seems super nit-picky to me,” Bennett said. “I get it it’s illegal, but there’s so many other illegal things that get completely glossed over with other politicians.”

Bennett said he was tired of what he described as a never-ending barrage of bogus allegations that have been constantly thrown Trump’s way ever since he was inaugurated.

“It seems like they’re just trying to go after him for anything, and they’ve tried on so many different occasions to get him caught up in stuff like all the Russia collusion stuff and all that, it seems like this is just such a minuscule thing,” Bennett said.

Despite not agreeing with the circumstances around the arrest, Bennett says he doesn’t think the news is as groundbreaking as some people are suggesting.

“It seems like a lot of the people I talk to have the same kind of reaction as me,” Bennet said. “It’s not the biggest thing in the world.”

Bennett said he hasn’t even seen much media coverage on it as he explained he rarely reads or watches the news.

“It seems like the only time I see it is when I’m at work and I see some glimpses of news on the Microsoft Edge browser and I don’t even look at it, I just see it pop up when I’m opening a new page,” Bennett said.

While he couldn’t vote in the 2016 election, Bennett said he voted for Trump in 2020 and would vote for him again if he were the Republican nominee in 2024.

“I like his politics and the fact that he’s not a career politician, sure he’s a multibillionaire, but he’s coming more from the position of people who aren’t super tied into politics,” Bennett said.

While Bennett does agree with many of the former presidents’ policies – the personality? Not so much.

“I totally understand why people don’t like him,” Bennett said. “He says stupid shit and makes an ass out of himself sometimes. I would appreciate if someone else came along, like Ron DeSantis, because you get a lot of the Donald Trump politics without the huge personality and the acting like an ass.”

Following his arrest, Trump gave a speech back in Florida in his resort at Mar-a-Lago. In his speech, he spoke about the arrest and subsequent charges, saying, “I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” and “The only crime I’ve committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”